Triune Dancing

O God my God,
I cry out to you.


The ache and longing forever by my side,
longing for more Love Divine.


Triune God will I see
this ache is meant to draw me to Thee.


How perilous this human part
if not directed towards your heart.


If only these lenses were cleansed
to see the pain a means to your end.


Brokeness and frayed edges all around.
Am I the only one who sees?
How out of sorts things are with 'we.'


Longing for a place called home,
tired of this sojourners roam.


Crying inward for something different than the same,
is it fear keeping me lame?


Hope beckons of community renewed,
but only if I sit with You.


Triune Dancer spins and twirls,
"Come, dance with Me, that
I might settle thee."


Uncomfortable steps and eyes so close,
something softens, fragile petals of this rose.


Fragrance rises with thorns and all,
strength given on this dance floor of my soul.

Come, sit for a while...

Every Tuesday it's become a rhythm for my week (doesn't that sound nice rhythm...perhaps a frenzied circus would be more accurate as of late) to walk up Higuera Street to visit my favorite local coffee shop Kreuzberg and write. Each week as I make my way over I walk by a furniture store window and this chair beckons me.  

Look at it!  Doesn't it say slow down, stop, come have a seat, and rest for a while.


The curves of the wicker, the face to face design, the cup holders...everything about this chair draws me and yet terrifies me.


How I long to be invited in, asked to sit, rest, and share.  To be met by interest, intrigue, insight, and most of all love.  Yet the very thing that beckons me leaves me tempted to walk on by and move on to the next thing, the goal of the day, the efficiency of getting 'it' done.  While that may be what distracts me, what really prevails underneath is fear....do you really want me, just me? uh, what if you get bored or disinterested? the silence, what about the silence? what do I do with those moments? worse, what comes up inside when there are no words.


Yet there is something about this chair, this well constructed chair, that says You were meant for me.  I designed it this way for you.  Can you see I AM what your heart craves?


I peer through the window front, much like my fictional friend Lucy from The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, curious, a little scared, but hoping there's magic behind it.  Something greater than myself beckoning me out and inviting me into a great adventure.  But this adventure begins first and foremost with entering and re-forming the inner life, my heart.  To know and be known, love and be loved, serve and be served.


I hear His life words, Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.  I make you lie down in green pastures, lead you beside quiet waters...I restore your soul.  I will never leave you, never-ever forsake you.


With His quiet words, I feel my resistance rise up, but it must come, this too part of the invitation...but you are in these other things too, they are good things you gave me.  Finally the things we've talked about for years are actually happening...are you sure now is time to pull away...


I peer in at the chair.  So safe, so inviting, but I've never sat so close, so locked in the gaze of another. The cost so clear, the way prepared...


Honored but conflicted.  


Longing but afraid.


I continue to stare, looking in on that chair.

Being Me (mmm...and figuring out who that is?)

Sometimes I wish I had a blog that was about clothes, decorating, travel.  


I don't.


I have tried to incorporate them. I even tried starting a whole new separate blog on decorating.


But you know what? I simply can't do it all. It's unrealistic.  


I have a job. I have soul care clients. I am trying to revise a book manuscript. I have friends. I have a family.


Truthfully, I often try living in the unrealistic.  I demand too much of myself (over assessment of self).  Which equals trying to fit too much in (lack of margin).  Which leads to rushing and not being present to L O V E, the giving and receiving.  


And you know what, I think we all are on this journey of becoming and realizing who we are and who we are not.  What we have room to give and what we do not.  Where we should spend our time and where we shouldn't.  What we can give and what we cannot.  But like I said, it's a journey.  One filled with valleys, peaks, wrong turns, and turnabouts.  Times of spinning our wheels and times of taking back ground.


J O U R N E Y.


And there is grace for that journey though I am the first one to squeeze it out and self-righteously declare, "I should have known." Quick to get to work on me and forego leaning into His grace and the necessity of dependence and the humility it requires.


T H A N K F U L for new life, we have permission to be L E A R N E R S, students of this new life in Christ. To enjoy the liberty of having NOT arrived (nor fooling ourselves that we have or demanding others should have).  The kingdom life turns it all upside down. And while my flesh rallies against it, my spirit breathes a sigh of relief and basques in it's warmth.


And so, I am learning to be me.  To offer who I am and what I bring. Not you. Not what you are asked to bring.  And that takes time, wrong turns, trying to be someone else and learning to come back to me...rather, the unique way Jesus dwells in me.


Join me this year in asking Jesus, "How can I let you more freely flow through me? Where do I need to create more margin and space to do that?  What will I have to say NO to in order to say YES somewhere else?"


While it may require letting go of things you've wanted to be or tried to uncomfortably fit in to be, press in with me T R U S T I N G our inheritance awaits, the territory each of us is given to take will unfold, and we will encounter more than we could ask for or imagine.


Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~Ephesians 3: 20-21

The Beauty of Becoming...

I love this word becoming.


Perhaps because it gives me permission to be in a process.  As a recovering "get it right, put together gal" I hear the gospel life all over that word.


We are being made new each day...B E C O M I N G.


Being asked to die to things that we used to cling to for life...B E C O M I N G.


Walking in faith, in the unknown that beckons us to trust and choose hope moment by moment...B E C O M I N G.


Looking away from the false images, constructed selves we use to prance around as and looking towards the gaze of Christ the only one reliable and authoritative to tell us our true beauty and worth...B E C O M I N G.


Learning to admit our faults and shortcomings to God's people and own our wrong when we've wounded a friend...B E C O M I N G.


Not taking ourselves too seriously and settling in to laughing, playing, silliness, and jest...B E C O M I N G.


How beautiful it is to be in the presence of a saint who flutters about freely, settled in to the new life of becoming in Christ, and letting the Spirit teach her to soar. B E A U T I F U L !


How are you settling into the beauty of becoming?

Little Butterfly

Along with the wondrous favors God bestows on the soul comes this terrible, beautiful torment: She is filled with longing to unendingly drink of the One who gives these blessings. She yearns to die. Everything she sees in this life finds some relief in solitude, but the torment always comes back. And yet, without this pain, the soul feels as if something vital were missing. And so, our little butterfly cannot find any lasting rest. Oh poor little butterfly, bound by so many chains that keep you from flying free wherever you want to go! Have mercy on her, My God. Let her do something toward fulfilling her desires for your honor and glory…But do not feel sorry for this little butterfly. Reinforced by your strength, she can endure any trial. In fact, she is determined to suffer everything for you. Extend your mighty arm, Lord, so that this soul does not have to waste her life in unholy ways. Manifest your greatness in this simple, feminine creature, so that all may see that this is not hers but yours and be moved to give you praise.” 

                                                        --Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle

God Reality is Good (but hard)

I wrestle.
God is good.  He is good all the time. All the time He is good.
I sing about this in church, pray it with others, yet I wrestle.


I feel like there has been weeks of soaring--high in the sky being carried by His wings. Then, there are days, sometimes weeks, where it feels like I fell off. 
If I'm honest more like I was dropped.


My heart starts to feel disrupted and confused as h o p e expands and gets bigger and bigger and then 
P O P, the circumstance or unfolding reality goes topsy turvy. 


My faith....wains.
And I wonder, where did I go?  The girl who just days ago was in awe of God's kindness, involvement, and care?  And it's hard. Harder than I ever thought cause I don't like what I'm seeing.  And I don't like what I think He may be asking.


It is then that I see.
See where my faith wandered and what I started to trust in.
An outcome I wanted.
A result that didn't come to fruition.
New territory I'm asked to walk in a very old struggle and it all feels too much.


And it is here, here, that He beckons, "Will you trust me? Trust me even here, yet again, that I am good. Will you trust I am guiding your heart to the Promiseland, and it is good. Good in a Kingdom way you have yet to understand?"


And you know what?  I want to understand it all, have answers, and then step.  But Jesus never let's me figure it all out. He asks for my heart, not my cerebral, conceptual head. Faith always requires stepping, then more unfolding, then stepping again.  Trusting the goodness of His life is somehow redeeming and transforming mine at each bend and new step.


God reality.  Seeing with e y e s  W I D E   o p e n.  No longer hiding. No longer pretending.  Stepping into the unknown and trusting (rather learning to trust) in the depths... 


GOD IS GOOD.  He is good all the time.  All the time He is good.

Do you "fit" in Church?

Donald Miller just wrote a great blog about whether today's church would survive if there wasn't a sermon. This on the heels of the day before's post on whether church produces only church leaders and is it missing a large demographic of other people?

I love the thoughts and where they meet me in my own unfolding church experience. I say unfolding because my view is constantly being formed and reformed and shaped by so many factors. I hope yours is as well!

Wanted to repost my response and hopefully get a little banter going. I am very curious about who my audience is and what you're thinking about.

Hi Everyone– I LOVE this post and it deeply resonates with my current reality. Recently I was participating in a BLOG poll for a Publishing House CEO and Leader who wanted to know his audience. As I went about the survey, something really rustled my feathers and haunted me the coming days (actually this has troubled me for quite some time only this survey hit the nail in more). When asked are you a christian? Yes. Are you a leader? Yes. How involved a Christian? Very. What kind of leadership are you in at your church? I stopped. Befuddled. Troubled. Looked at the categories. None. None? I had not one category to check.

See for 10 years I worked in the non-profit, interdenominational, para-church world. It was my ‘tribe’ for quite some time. Now two years into being “out on my own” I don’t know exactly where I fit? I have a deep passion for the church, God’s people, but when it comes to the institution–the day in and day out goings of a geographical place/building and people–I soemtimes feel really “out of it.”

I, like Donald, feel a calling to be an “ideas” person and articulate some of the human experience. I lead out of this and my positioning in the Kingdom is becoming clearer. I want to help people get more in touch with their souls so they can lead from that place and sustain their call wherever it is. Interestingly enough though, I still don’t know how this plays out in day to day church, or at least the way it’s been defined?

Sure I’ve felt some guilt. Tried to find a place to fit. But as I’ve been wrestling with this more and more I’ve often wondered, “Could it be that this because we are in the midst of a Great Reformation? Are these some of the symptoms?”

And you know what? In my heart I’ve landed that we are in a reformation….I’m curious what do you guys think?

Another thing to add to the pot is rethinking the way we’ve done church. A good friend of mine shared with me about a book he read THE SHAPING OF THINGS TO COME It’s a whole sociological and biblical take on church. Why have we made it about listening to only one person, or a handful of peoples ideas instead of a communal experience and living organism? A place where a pastor shepherds, an intercessor prays and shares, a prophet warns and illuminates, an exhorter calls people forth, a servant ignites passion to serve people hands on with truth, grace, and justice….where each person offers out of the Spirit living and breathing in them? Maybe what God is trying to say to us, shepherd us in, and call forth in us individually and communally would ignite more quickly? And we’d leave more filled.

Contemplating such things and experimenting with them in small groups have both inspired me and freaked me out. What I’m left pondering is…how do we need to reshape church? How can we facilitate more environments so everyone plays a part? Creating space where we actively look to each member to offer us their part. And how does this change the way we do church, think about church, and offer church?

What do you think? What do you long for, for the the church? Seeking friends, what closes you off about the church?

Join the conversation in my comments and/or Donald's Blog

p.s. after posting this I went on a walk and thought about all the lovely leaders and people I know in church who are "doing church" in such a beautifully diverse way. there really is no one way. like the church i attend now that is really seeking to open up the whole body to offering out of their gifts and talents. but i think it's good to long for more and engage the conversation. but when it's all said and done we are all just people, learning, and hopefully being stretched again and again to consider and reconsider the way we "do life together."

Leadership Re:formation...when there's got to be a better way!

This is on my website www.susieshawsoulcare.com but thought it resonated so much with a leaders heart wanted to repost it here. Hey maybe God's got a partnership in store for us bloggin' friends?

CURRICULUM FOR CHRISTLIKENESS IN LEADERSHIP 101

We start out alive....full of hopes and dreams for the Kingdom!

Then we get going....

It’s really exciting...and then.....

IT GET’S HARD.

REALLY hard!

I’m not sure I would have signed up for this if I knew it would go this way, kind of HARD!

* OBSTACLES

* Frustrations ! ! !

* Dissension from the ones we thought were on our team!?

After a few years of this, ministry starts to leave a heavy toll on our hearts.

Lord, do you still want me here because I’m not sure I can last much longer?

BUT DON’T MISS THIS....

A NEW INVITATION is O P E N I N G U P.

“Beloved, Let me rebuild you for the mission at hand.”

• Abraham signed up for the course when he did not know where it would take him.
• Moses submitted to the process and progressive training.
• Isaiah told of its curriculum.
• Peter humbled himself to come under the Teacher and learn the leadership re:formation classroom.
• Paul let go of the Honor Roll of prestige and relearned a new curriculum “The Course on Christlikeness 101”

Through the ages God has developed His seminary, and it’s starts in the Wilderness, often through the disillusionment of ministry.

B U T if we submit to the process, sign up, and show up for the course what unfolds is B R E A T H T A K I N G

NEW LANDS....

Greater INTIMACY

Freedom from within to lead & lead others into

If this sounds familiar, you are not intended to forge this path alone!

Isolation will take you out!

Avoidance will lead to indifference and bitterness.

Worse, lack of intimacy with God and loved ones will corrode the joy of life.

The good news is God graciously provides guides along the way who know this terrain and are equipped to walk some of this path out with you (and there is not just one person but many that show up along the way). I am not the savior here just someone who can guide you to Him (having been guided herself).

Whether its one-on-one Soul Care with you and your spouse, a Potter’s Wheel Workshop with you and your team, a Sanctuary weekend away or something uniquely designed for your needs, I hope to come alongside this process (knowing a little bit about this school of Christlikeness and it’s courses!)

Contact me (suzshaw@gmail.com) and let’s see what the next best step is for you.

How are you doing in your leadership?